Women's Hockey Poised for Another NCAA Tournament Run

10/22/2009 11:00:00 AM | Women's Ice Hockey

By: Dartmouth

HANOVER, N.H. - After a season in which the Dartmoth women's hockey team made a late-season run to claim its fourth ECAC Hockey Tournament title and appear in its third straight NCAA Tournament, the Big Green are set to lace up the skates and hit the ice for another season in Hanover.

Dartmouth welcomes back three of its top scorers from a year ago, including senior co-captains Sarah Parsons and Jenna Cunningham. Junior Amanda Trunzo rounds out point-getters as she returns after a 42-point season last year. Overall the Big Green has 17 letterwinners coming back for the second-straight year, while losing seven from last season. Dartmouth will be without two-time All-Ivy defenseman Sarah Newnam, goaltender Carli Clemis and 100-point scorers Maggie Kennedy and Shannon Bowman, as well as Marley McMillan, Julia Bronson and Katie Gray.

Joining the top three scorers on the front lines will be senior Sarah Toupal, who has been a very consistent player for the Big Green in her three years in a Dartmouth uniform.

Other offensive threats include Jenna Hobeika, Larissa Roche and Alyssa Boehm. Hobeika's first season was cut short due to an injury, but she showed progress in her six games played. Roche tallied one assist last season and played in 23 games, while Boehm was named the most improved player on the squad at the end of the year. She recorded a career-high five points, coming on four goals and an assist with one the goals coming in the ECAC Hockey Tournament Championship against Rensselaer.

Sophomore Kelly Foley returns after a stellar first campaign with 25 points on 12 goals and 13 assists. She was a constant on the top line throughout the season and definitely earned her spot. Foley recorded four power play goals as well and was second among rookies with her 25 points.

The Big Green have three newcomers entering into the fold this coming year as Camille Dumais, Sally Komarek and Jessica Gagner will be joining the front line. Dumais comes to Hanover from Dawson College in Montreal, where she was an assistant captain for the Blues. Komarek was a five-year member of the varsity team at The Blake School and last season was the runner-up for Miss Minnesota Hockey. She led The Blake School to two Minnesota State Titles during her high school career. Gagner played one season at Breck School in Minnesota, before moving to London, Ont., and spent three years with the Bluewater Hawks of the Provincial Women's Hockey League.

On the blueline, Dartmouth has to replace the three of its most experienced defensemen in recent years in Newnam, Bronson and Gray. They provided leadership to their line mates, which was a big reason for the defensive success. The Big Green will be young in this area with one senior in Sue Schmitz. She will have to step up for Dartmouth this season and help fill the void. Junior Katie Horner joins Schmitz as the other experienced blueliner. Horner finished last year with two assists. Both skaters saw limited time a year ago, but will be called on to lead the young players.

Sophomore Geneva Kliman and Moira Scanlon gained a lot of ice time last season and they return a combined nine points, including three scores from Scanlon in her 23 games played.

Dartmouth replaced experience on the line with three freshmen making the trip to Hanover. The group includes Lisa Berreman, Sasha Nanji and Marguax Sharp. Like Komarek, Berreman was a five-year player on the varsity team at Eagan High School and she finished her hockey career as a top-10 finalist for Miss Minnesota Hockey. Nanji also had a five-year high school career at Branksome Hall in Toronto, while also playing for the Mississauga Chiefs for a season. Sharp played hockey at Carleton Place High School, was a two-time MVP and won gold at the provincial championship, playing for the Ottawa Senators Intermediate AA of the Provincial Women's Hockey League.

In net, the Big Green will be without three-year starter Carli Clemis, but senior goaltender Mariel Lacina has the most experience of the three that will be competing for the job. Lacina has appeared in 13 career games and has posted an 8-1-2 overall record. Fellow senior Sarah Kennedy has been plagued by injuries the past two seasons, but is set for her final season with Dartmouth. Freshman Whitney Woodcox comes to Hanover as the first netminder in a recruiting class in two seasons. She competed for the Whitby Wolves and won the Lower Lakes League Championship with a 20-0-2 record and earned the silver medal at Provincials.

The Dartmouth power play improved a lot last season and was ranked third in the nation behind the national champion, Wisconsin, and Wayne State. The Big Green converted on 49-of-198 chances for a 24.7 percent success rate to lead ECAC Hockey. Colgate had the same amount of goals, but 10 more chances on the man advantage. Dartmouth returns two of its top scorers on the power play. Trunzo was a power-play machine with 11 power play goals, which was the most by a Dartmouth player since Katie Weatherston '06 connected on 13 goals with the extra skater in 2006-07. Parsons was not far behind Trunzo with eight power-play scores of her own, while Newnam couldn't miss on the man advantage with a career-high eight power-play goals of her own. The Big Green had five skaters net three or more goals with the extra skater and had three more tally one score. Dartmouth will miss the flexibility of Maggie Kennedy on the power play as she was able to cover the point and also provide the skill at the front of the net.

The penalty kill was in the middle of the conference in productivity as the Big Green gave up 28 goals down a skater in 169 chances for the opposition. Even with a struggling penalty-killing unit Dartmouth was able to post a +21 special teams net with 49 goals to only giving up 28 on the kill. The Big Green led the conference in that category.

Dartmouth head coach Mark Hudak returns to the bench for his seventh season leading the Big Green. Last season, he passed Judy Oberting for second all-time in coaching victories and has posted 128 wins in his six seasons. Hudak sat down and talked about his team and the prospect of a new season.

Parity showed up last season in ECAC Hockey with the fourth-place team winning the tournament title against the sixth-place team. Is this something that you see continuing?

I think the parity will continue but No. 4 against No. 6 will probably not be the norm. The talent pool is getting spread among more of the teams in the league and outside, and making sure you do what needs to be done to get into the playoffs is going to be important as “anything can happen.”
Sarah Parsons and Jenna Cunningham were voted in to be captains, how important is their leadership to the success of the team?

The leadership of both Sarah and Jenna will be important to us all year as well as the leadership provided by the entire senior class. With the number of freshmen and sophomores we have, the upperclass hasa huge responsibility in leading by example, on and off the ice.

The power play unit was tops in ECAC Hockey and third nationally last season and had success the previous year as well. What is it that makes the man advantage such a successful part of the team's game?

We have been fortunate enough to have two power play units that can both be effective. Being able to do that and having each one running a little different look makes it much harder to prepare for us. Our ability to do that, though, lies in our players hands more than anything. They have to be smart, work hard and be ready to out-compete the opponents' penalty kill. We seem to have done a good job with that in the past and we will need to continue that going forward.

What do you believe will be the strength or strengths of your team? What do you see as areas to improve?

Our strengths probably are in our forward positions, which is where we have the majority of our experience. They will have to do a great job playing both ends of the ice this year. Our unknowns are probably most felt at defense and in goal. Losing three senior defenders and our senior starting goalie, leave us some questions marks. I like what we have in both positions, but we will have to see how fast we can learn and gain experience.

Seven newcomers for the second-straight year. How talented is this class and are they expected to contribute right away?

We always expect our freshmen to contribute right away. That has always been a strength of our team, and having seven again this year will be key to us performing down the stretch. I like the group we have and expect them to learn quickly.

With the graduation of three-year starter Carli Clemis in net, the goalie situation has changed. You have three capable netminders, so will it be goaltender by committee or will you name a starter?

Our goaltending position is like any other on the team. We try to assess from week to week and go with what we feel is best for the team. We'll have to see what we get out of each at the beginning of the season and move forward from there.

What games jump out at you this season as big games?

Getting back to parity — all of our games are going to be important this year, and we are going to have to treat each as if we were playing an Ivy rival or as if they were one of the top teams in the country. Not getting up for a game is going to have disastrous effects this year and, I think, in the years going forward. It really is going to have to be a game-by-game season.